Best ATX case for under £150

alex24

alex24

alex24

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1 Jan 2008
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What would you suggest now? New and second hand!

I really love my P182SE but I find it hard to work in, not particularly cool and really rather heavy (I move it around a lot). Kind of getting the urge for something new, maybe I get bored too quick! I do love the simple and refined looks though.

ATX is a must really, unless there's a MATX good enough to change my board for (doubt it!). Nice looking, light, quality build and good cooling would be great too...

So far, I've looked at the Corsair 600T, but it seems a bit cheap looking and I'm not so keen on the styling. Shame there's nothing closer to the 700D from them.

Pretty much written off Antec cases now as they're so ugly!

Lian Li I have a soft spot for, they all look great. Second hand V1000 or V2000 would be very nice, but not sure how good they are for cooling and are pretty old and rare. May well water cool if it can be worked in well though.

Silverstone seem to command quite a premium new and come up rarely second hand it would seem.

The HAF series seem good value, but again, ugly!

The NZXT Phantom looks like a stonking case for what you pay, but I'm concerned about build quality and it's not the most subtle thing to have on your desk.

Am I missing any great looking, cool and fully featured cases?
 
the phantom is supposed to have the front and top panels in really strong plastic im gettin on it should be here by tomorrow, ill tell you then
 
alexhull24 said:
What would you suggest now? New and second hand!

I really love my P182SE but I find it hard to work in, not particularly cool and really rather heavy (I move it around a lot). Kind of getting the urge for something new, maybe I get bored too quick! I do love the simple and refined looks though.

ATX is a must really, unless there's a MATX good enough to change my board for (doubt it!). Nice looking, light, quality build and good cooling would be great too...

So far, I've looked at the Corsair 600T, but it seems a bit cheap looking and I'm not so keen on the styling. Shame there's nothing closer to the 700D from them.

Pretty much written off Antec cases now as they're so ugly!

Lian Li I have a soft spot for, they all look great. Second hand V1000 or V2000 would be very nice, but not sure how good they are for cooling and are pretty old and rare. May well water cool if it can be worked in well though.

Silverstone seem to command quite a premium new and come up rarely second hand it would seem.

The HAF series seem good value, but again, ugly!

The NZXT Phantom looks like a stonking case for what you pay, but I'm concerned about build quality and it's not the most subtle thing to have on your desk.

Am I missing any great looking, cool and fully featured cases?
Click to expand...

I used to own the coolermaster atcs 840 which was very popular for those into modding and was a very good looking case with an aluminum body and was massive making it good for watercooling but I ended up changing to the 'ugly' haf case!

It all depends on you but for me it was incredibly frustrating that I couldn't use the the 3rd pcie slot on my asus p6x58d-e for my second gpu as my case only had 7 pci slots! This meant firstly I had both my gpu's sitting next to each other starving one of fresh air & secondly both the mobo pci slots were covered due to the gpu being dual slot!

The haf and antec 902 became my 2 choices and I ended up buying the garish nvidia edition haf which is not everyones cuppa but I love it and more importantly it cools amazingly! My gtx 275 sli dont toch 70 degrees even when under near full load playing bad company 2 :).

So for me, the haf x at £130 odd is the best performing value for money case :)
 
I personally prefer the HAF 932 to the X - something about the design of the top that I just don't like on the X ...Only downfall with the 932 is the internals aren't black, they're just that grey/silver ming colour lol :)
 
Own a Coolermaster ATCS 840 and find it a superb case .... massive space inside with all the features you would expect plus all intaking fans (even vents that have optional fans not fitted) have filters.

PS you still wanting the caddies ? ;)
 
DirtyJester said:
Own a Coolermaster ATCS 840 and find it a superb case .... massive space inside with all the features you would expect plus all intaking fans (even vents that have optional fans not fitted) have filters.

PS you still wanting the caddies ? ;)
Click to expand...

Yeah, they'll be useful for almost any of these cases! Thanks


Thanks for all the suggestions too. Looks like I haven't missed anything awesome, there just don't seem to be as many cases I like out there any more.

What about new Lian Li cases? Should be pretty light, fairly subtle, what about cooling?
 
alexhull24 said:
What about new Lian Li cases? Should be pretty light, fairly subtle, what about cooling?
Click to expand...
Door-equipped Lian Li's don't fit to that budget.
PC-B10 is very similar to your Antec in size making it weird costly for its size when lot bigger (210 x 440 x 515 mm vs 220mm x 590mm x 615mm) E-ATX full tower PC-A71FB (with more cooling) costs only little more.
But as you mentioned weight "empty weight" of PC-A71 is about 9kg vs. 14kg of your much smaller Antec and couple millimeter bitumen lining would add just couple kgs.
PC-B10 should be around 7kg considering size difference.

From doorless Lian Lis PC-B25 has design which wouldn't be fully noise leaking.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-183-LL
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-184-LL

MADEinSTOKE said:
How about this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-012-FD&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1556
Click to expand...
Otherwise well fitting to requirements but I don't think this is going to cut it:
Net weight: 17.95kg
http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&prod=54
(smaller R2/R3 is 12.5kg)
 
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